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EEMAEKS 



O F 

GEORGE P. MARSH, 

OF VERMONT, 

ON SLATER! II THE TEERIT0RIE8 

O F 

New iWexico, California and Oregon ; 

Delivered in the House of Representatives, August Sd, 1848, 



.M32 



»m^mmimmi^«*^^**-*iivtmummim/m 



FREE PRESS OFFICE PRINT, 

Burlington, Vermont. 






REMARKS. 



Mr. Marsh said : — That tlirouglioiit the de- 
bate on this important subject, it had i;een as- 
sumed, that slavery liad neither a legal nor an 
actual existence in Oregon, or the territory ac- 
quired. by the late Mexican Treaty. He was not 
sure tliat this opinion was well founded, and he 
proposed to ^how, that it was matter of doubt, 
whether slavery had ever been abolished in Or- 
egon, California or New Mexico, by any legis- 
lation which our courts of law would recognize 
as valid, and he would thence argue the necssi- 
sity of a positive proliibition of that institution 
by Congress. It was too notorious to require 
historical proof, that slavery was tolerated, and 
actually existed throughout Spanish America, 
until the separation of those provinces from the 
Spanish crown, and of course it might now law- 
fully exist in all the territory acquired from Mex- 
ico or Spain, unless it had been legally abolish- 
ed, by express legislation, or by operation of law, 
as a necessary result of the transfer of that ter- i 
ritory to the United States. I 

Slavery, said Mr. Marsh, was introduced into 
all the foreign possessions of the Spanish crown 
about the commencement of the sixteentii cen- 
tury, at a period when it was tolerated in almost 
every country where the civil law was in force; 
and though the nfuiiber of slaves in Mexico did 
not exceed ten thousand: in the yeariSOO, yet 
the institution was neither legally nor ])ractical- 
ly extinct, at the time of the Mexican Revolu- 
tion. 

It had been asserted, that slavery was prohib- 
ted by the Mexican Federal constitution of 1)524. 
This was an error, and Yir. Marsh referred to 
that instrument to show, that so far from being 
abolished, it was actually recognized by the 
constitution of 1824, which contained the fol- 
lowing provision, borrowed no doubt from our 
constitution : " Cvery state is bound to deliver 
"' up fugitives from otlier states to the person 
" who justly demands them, or to comjiel them 
" in some other way to satisfy the party interest- 
"ed." The phraseology had been altered from 
the corresponding provision in our conslilution, 



in order to embrace, not technical slavery alone^ 
but that barbarous relic of the ancient Roman 
law, iwonaiie, or the servitude of an insolvent 
debtor to iiis creditor, as existing by the laws of 
Mexico. 

The error, so far as it was a misapprehension, 
and not a misrepresentation, arose from the fact, 
that the constitution of the srveral States of the 
Mexican confederacy did in fact, in general at 
least, abolish slavery either immediately or pros- 
pectively, and Mr. Marsh cited the provisions of 
several of those constitutions to that purport, 
and among others, that of the joint statejof Tex- 
and Coahuila, adopted in 1827. which ordains as 
follows : 

" In this state none is born a slave after the 
" promulgation of this constitution at the capital 
"of each district; and after six montlis, the in- 
" troduction of slaves is permitted under no pre- 
" text whatsoever." 

But, said Mr. Marsh, New Mexico and Cali- 
fornia never were states of the confederacy, but 
territories, without a provincial legislature, the 
government of the former being purely military, 
and that of the latter a politico-religious organ- 
ization. It was not satisfactorily siiewn, tliat 
the Mexican government had ever, in a consti- 
tutional way, attempted tlie abolition of slavery 
in those territories, nor was it clear that Con- 
gress, or any branch of the federal government, 
had the power to interfere with the riglits of 
property in the territories. The constitution of 
1824 gave Congress power "to enact laws and 
" decrees for the regulation of the internal ad- 
" ministration of the territories." 

These terms were very difFerent from those 
defining the power of our Congress over the ter- 
ritories. Did they authorize the Mexican Con- 
gress to do anything more than prescribe the 
form of government for the territories? This, 
in the opinion of Mr. Marsh, was at least doubt- 
ful. 

But it had been said, that President Guerrero, 
who had been made Dictator at the time of the 
Spanish invasion under Barragan in 1829, had 



4 



abolished slavery throughout the Republic. It 
was a sufficient answer to this, to say that Con- 
gress had no constitutional authority to confer 
ihe alleged extraordinary powers upon the Pres- 
ident, and his dictatorship was consequently a 
mere inihtary usurpation ; but although the de- 
cree of Guerrero recited, that he had been invest- 
ed with extraordinary powers, no act of Con- 
gress granting such powers had been produced. 
On tlie contrary, it did appear, that in July 1829, 
Iwo months only before the date of the decree 
in question, the Mexican Senate, by a decided 
majority, refused its assent to a bill which had 
passed the lower House, conferring extraordina- 
ry powers on the President for the term of five 
months. 

In 1835, said Mr. Marsh, the federal consti- 
tution of Mexico was overthrown, not by the 
constitutional process of amendment, but by vi- 
olence ; and a plan of government, creating a 
centralized, instead of a. federal republic, abolish- 
ing the state legislatures, and reducing the states 
themselves to departments, was promulgated. — 
Mr. Marsh had not been able to find a copy of 
this plan of government, but it did not appear, 
from the abstract of it given by Muhlenpfordt, to 
have contained any provision relative to slavery. 
It had been said, that the Congress acting under 
(his new plan of government had passed a law 
in 1837 abolishinir slavery throughout the Re- 
public, and providing for the compensation of 
the master; but whether Congress had power to 
pass such an act, under the new constitution, 
and whether that instrument ought to be held 
legally tn supercede the constitution of 1824, 
were questions which we had not the means of 
determining. 

it must be remembered, said Mr. Marsh, that 
publicists and jurists are guided by very different 
j)rinciplesin tiie determination of questions ofthis 
nature. Politically, and with reference to other 
nations, the government de facto is recognized 
by statesmen, but a court of justice might ad- 
judge, that as between the subjects and the gov- 
ernment, the acts of the latter had no validity 
whatever, and therefore,though a treaty made by 
us with the government actually in power might 
be binding, it by no means followed that our 
courts would sustain laws, in derogation of the 
rights of property, enacted by any of the series 
of usurpations with which Mexico had been 
cursed. 

Doubtless it was true that the law had been 
generally acquiesced in, at least in the stales; 
that it had been so universally, in the territories 
was not yet proved, but there was every reason 
to believe, that slavery existed in fact, to but a 
very limited extent, if at all, in any part of the 
Mexican republic. What the effect of such ac- 
quiescence in a law not perhaps originally bind- 



ing might be, Mr. Marsh would not undertake to 
say, but he was unwilling to risk anything on 
such a question. 

In regard to Oregon, Mr. M. said, that per- 
sons familiar with the discussions relative to 
our rights to that territory would remember, that 
upon full debate, and especiallly after the able 
speech of a distinguished Senator from New 
York, (Mr. Dix) it was generally agreed, that 
the title by which we must stand or fall was 
that derived from Spain by the treaty of 1819. 
In Oregon, then, considered as apart of Spanish 
America, Slavery legally existed, at the time of 
the transfer to the United States. It would not 
be admitted by Southern gentlemen, that Slave- 
ry was abolished by the change of sovereignty. 
On the contrary, they insisted that the range of 
Slavery was extended, by annexing to this con- 
federacy territory before free, in virtue of the 
alledged right of every American citizen to mi- 
grate thither, carrying with him his moveable 
properli/, and personal rights to property. Slave- 
ry, then, said Mr. M., it will be contended, 
may now be legally introduced into Ore- 
gon, unless prohibited by law. It was urged, 
that the provisional government organized b)'^ 
the people of Oregon had adopted the great fea- 
ture of the ordinance of 1787, but when, in what 
form, and under what sanctions ? On this sub- 
ject, we are by no means fully enlightened, and 
Mr. M. had the authority of a gentleman, who 
had twice visited Oregon, and resided there for 
many months, for saying that, in spite of the or- 
dinance of the provisional government, both Af- 
ricans and Sandwich Islanders are at this hour, 
to some extent, held in Slavery in that terri- 
tory. 

It might, therefore, and would be, contended, 
said Mr. M., that Slavery might be lawfully re- 
introduced throughout the whole of those vast 
districts where it had altogether, or with very 
trifling exceptions, ceased to exist, upon two 
grounds: First, that Slavery having been per- 
mitted in Oregon, California, and New Mexico, 
while provinces of Spain, and having never been 
legally abolished, in contemplation of law still 
exists in those territories ; and secondly, that 
though Slavery may have been abolished by 
Mexico, yet American Slaveholders may now 
revive it, by removing to the territories and car- 
rying their Slaves with them. 

To the latter of these propositions Mr. M. said 
he could by no means assent, though aware 
that much better lawyers than himself had main- 
tained the affirmative, and as to the former, 
while he was not prepared to deny what he hoped 
would prove true, that Slavery, namely, had been 
legally abolished throughout both the States and 
the Territories of Mexico, yet he must insist 



that we were acting without any sufficient war- 
rant, in assuming such to be the fact. 

Mr. Marsh continued as follows ; — It is, 
then, matter of grave doubt, whether the 
effect of the acquisition of New Mexico, 
California, and Oregon is not the extension 
of Christian American Slavery through all 
those wide provinces. How shall this doubt 
be solved ? Two modes are proposed. The 
one is to cut this gordian knot by the sword of 
Congressional legislation, the other is to refer 
the question, as a matter of law, to the deter- 
mination of judicial tribunals. The first method 
proposes the abolition of Slavery, if actually, or 
in contemplation nf law, now existent in these 
territories, and its prohibition, if now non-ej^ist- 
ent; the other repudiates the interference of 
Congress, and avows the purpose of tolerating 
Slavery wherever it now exists, or can be intro- 
duced without a violation of positive prohibjtory 
law. The advocates of the former plan seek to re- 
strict Slavery, by adopting the principles of the 
ordinance of 1787 ; the aption of those of the 
latter, tends to spread it, through the operation 
of the Compromise Bill lately reported to (.he 
Senate of the United States, over immense re- 
gions where it now exists, if indeed at i^ll, only 
as a legal fiction. 

I shall first say a word jn reference to the ex- 
pediency and the safety of submitting thjs great 
question to adjudication by courts of law. 1 may 
eafely assume, that no intelligent lawyer, cer- 
tainly no Northern lawyer, would be content to 
leave this point to be determined, in the last ;-e- 
sort, by the local tribunals ; yet the bill pressed by 
some of its friends with hot q.nd indecent haste, 
in order that it might be acted upon before pub- 
lic sentin^cnt should be roused, and the public 
will expressed — ^a bill framed, too, by lawyers 
presumahly not ignort^nt of the very recent de- 
cision of the Suprenie Coqrt of the United States 
jn Barry's case—contained, as originally reportr 
ed, no eflfectual provision for the removal of 
tlie question to the Supreme Court. It is 
true, that an amenijment fbr that purpose was 
finally i^dopted, but the negative votes of some, 
and tl^e sjjence of other friends of the bill, upon 
this and other amendments designed to give 
frecfjom an equal chance with sl^.very, indicate 

fdajnly enough, that its franjers had not special- 
y at nearf the promotion of the cause of human 
liberty by the legislative or judicial action of this 
republic* 



* Upon the day of the passage pf the Camprquiise 
pill by the Senate, the following amendments, amoncj 
Pfhera were ofltred. 

By Mr. Baldwin, a Whig Senator from Connectj. 
put; 

And be it further enacted. That it shall be t|\e duty 
of m a{{flrftejr» fqj: Biji4 Xerriwriea^ respectively, oa 



But suppose all obstacles, whether technical 
or practical, to the fair presentation of the ques- 
tion to the Supreme Court, to be removed ; is 
that court a fit tribunal for the determination of 
a great political question like this ? I am far 
from desiring to disparage the impartiality or the 
ability of a tribunal distinguished for the posses- 
sion of eyery judicial excellence, and which I 
hold in the highest reverence as the great bul- 
wark ofour constitutional liberties. Its pre-em- 
inent ability is recognised by the universal voice 



the complaint of any person held in involuntary servi- 
tude therein, to make application in his behalf, in due 
form of law, to die court ne.vt thereafter to be holden 
in said Territory, for a writ ot liabeas corpus, to be 
directed to the person so holdinsr such applicant in 
service, as atbresnid, and to pursue all needful meas- 
ures in his behalf; and if the decision uf such court 
shall be adverse to such annlication, or if, in the re- 
turn of the writ, relief shall be denied to the applicant 
on the ground that he is a slave held in servitude in 
said Territory, said attorney ijhall cause an appeal to 
be taken therefrom ; and ^he record of all the pro- 
ceedings in the case to be transmi'ted to the Supreme 
Cpurt of the United States, as soon as may be ; and 
to give notice thereof to ll^e Attorney General of the 
United States, who shall prosecute (he same befora 
said court, who shall proceed to hear and determino 
^he same at the first term {hereof. 

This amendment, the object of which was to enable 
the slave, who could scarcely be supposed to possess 
the means of litigating the issue, t3 test the question 
of his right to freedom, at the expense of the Govern- 
ment ot the United Stqtes, was defeated by the fol- 
lowing vote :— , 

Yeas — Messrs. Allen, Baldwin, P.enlon, Corwin, 
Davton, Dix, Dodge, Ft»loh, Greene, Hale, Hamlin, 
Miller, Niles, Upham and Walker.-^15. 

Nays— jMessrs. Atchison, Badger, Bell, Berrien, 
Borland, Bright, Butler, Calhoun, Clayton, Davis of 
Mississippi. Dickinson, Downs, Foote, Hann^gan, 
tlouaton, Hunter, Johnson of Maryland, Johnson of 
Louisiana, Johnson cf Georgia, King, tjewis, Man- 
gum, Atasoii, Metcalfe, Phelps. Ruslf, Sebastian, Spru- 
ance. Sturgeon, Turney and Underwood.^— 31. 

By Mr. Clarke, a Whig ^enafor ffom R. Island : 

Provided, fiowevor, that no law repealing the i\cx 
of the provisional government of said Territory [of 
Oregon] prohibiting slavery or involuntary servitude 
therein, shall be valid ijnlil the same shall be approved 
by Cong^ress. 

The yeas and nays were as follows:-.— t 

Yeas— Messrs. Allen, Baldwin, Benton, Bradbury, 
Clarke, Corwin, Davis of \Ia3sachusetts, Dayton, Dix, 
Dodge, Felch, Fitzgerald, Qreene, Hale, Hamlin, 
Miller, Niles, Upham and WalHer.-..iy. 

NAVS-^-IVIpssr^. Atchison, A.therton, Badger, Bell, 
Berrien, Borland, Breese, Bright Butler, Caihoqn, 
Clayton, Davis of .Mississippi, D'ekinson, Douglass, 
Powns, Foote, Hapnegan, Houston, Hunter, Johnspu 
of Marvland, Johnson of Georgia, I\ing, L,ewia, Ma^ 
son, Metcalfe, Phelps, Rusk, Sebastian, Sturgeon, 
Turney, Underwood, Westcott and Yulee._^33. 

By Mr. Jhvis, a Whig Senator from Massachu-. 
setts : 

"I'hat 80 much of the 6th article of the ordinance of 
the J3th July, 1787, as is contained in the following 
words, to wit : " There shall be neither slavery noy 
JHYolmiiaiy servitude it^ the said Territory oiherwiia 



of the legal profession, and its stern impartiality 
Las been signally attested by its decisions in the 
great cases of the Amistad negroes, and Prigg 
vs. Pennsylvania. But it is precisely because 
of my reverence for that court, and rny exalted 
estimate of its value as a conservative element 
in our system, that I would not impose upon it 
the painful and dangerous obligation— the plenum 
opus alerL'-of determining so weighty and so del- 
icate a question as tiiis. We should hazard not 
its impartiality and its high moral influence on- 
ly, hue its constitution, and even its existence. 



than in punishment of crimes vvh.ireof die party shall 
have been duly convicted," shall be and remain in 
;,, force within tlie Territoiy of Oregon. 

The amenclment was lost by tiie following vote :— 
YE.is— .Messrs. Allen, Atherton, Baldwin, Benton, 
Bradbury. Clarke, Corwin, Davis of Massachusetts, 
Dayton, Dix, Dod^e, Felch, Fitztrcrald, Greene, Hale, 
Hamlin, MiLer, Nilfes, Spruance", Upham and Walk- 
er.^-21. 

Navs— Messrs. Atchison, Badger, Bell, Berrien, 
Borland, Breese, Bright, Biitler, Calhoun, Clayton, 
Davis of Mississippi, Dickinson, Douglass, Downs, 
Foote, flanuegan, Houston, Hunter, Johnson of ]*ld., 
Joinison of Louisiana, Johnson of Georj^ia, King, 
Lewis, Mangum, Mason, Metcalfe, Rusk, Sebastian, 
Sturgeon, Tnrney, Lhiderwood, Westcotl and Yulee. 

By Mr. Johnson, a Whig Senator from Maryland : 

Au amendment, providing for a writ of appeal from 
the Territorial to the Supreme Court, " upon any writ 
of habeas corpus involving the question of personal 
freedom." 

Y ];.is=-.Messrs. Allen, Atherton, Badger, Berrien, 
Bradbury, Clarke, Clayton, Corwin, Davis of Mass., 
Dayton, Dix, Dodge, I elch, Fitzgerald, Greene, Hale, 
Hamlin, Houston, Johnson ol Maryland, .lohnson o 
Louisiana, King, Mauguin, Metcalfe, Miller, Niles, 
J^helps, Rusk, Spruance, Sturgeon, Upbam, and 
Walker.-<^-3L 

N AVS" Messrs. Atchison, Benton, Borland, Bright, 
Butler, Calhoun, Davis of Miss., Dickinson, Downs, 
Foote, Hannegan, Hunter,. lohnson ofGeorg., Lewis, 
Mason, Sebastian, Turney, ffestcott and Yulee. 
—I'.l. 

Upod the passage of the bill the vote was as fol- 
lows:— 

YEAs^-^Northern Whigs, Mr Phelps. 

Southern VVhigs^^lVles^rs Berrien, Clayton, John- 
pon of Maryland, Johnson ot La., Man'gum, Spru- 
ance. ---6- 

Northern Democrats— Messrs. Atherton, Breese, 
Brirjht, Dickinson, Douglass, Hannegan, Sturgeon—T. 

Southern Democrats^-Messrs. Atchison, Benton, 
Borland, Butler, Calhoun, Davis of Missis3ippi,Downs, 
Foote, Houston, Johnson of Ga., King, Lewis, Ma- 
enn, Rusk, Sabastian, Turney, IFestcott, Yulee— 19. 
83 in all. 

N.^vs^Northern Whigs ; Messrs, Baldwin, Clarke, 
Corwin, Davis of Massachusettes, Dayton, Greene, 
Miller, lipham.— 8. 

Southern Whigs-^-Messrs. Badger, Bell, Metcalfe, 
ond Underwood. ■—4. 

Northern Deinocrats-^Mee«rs. Allen, Bradbury, 
Di.\-, Dodge, Field, Fitzgerald, Hamlin, jiiles and 
\Valker..^y. 

Southern Democrats~None. 

Ji)ijpj)endent--Mr, Hdlp.— I. 



During the long period of the pendency of this 
question, it would be incessantly exnosed to ev- 
ery adverse influence. Local sympathies, long 
cherished prejudices, the predilections of party, 
the known wishes of the administration, and of 
the national legislature, would all conspire to 
bias the decision, intervening vacancies would 
be filled with reference to the supposed, perhaps 
even pledged, opinion of the candidate upon this 
one question, and when finally tiie decision 
should be promulgated, tlie coiirt itself would 
become, with the defeated party, the object of 
a hostility as deep-rooted,as ))ersevering.as wide- 
ly difiused, as rancorous, as are at this moment 
the feelings and the prejudices of the parties now 
arrayed against each other upon this great is- 
sue. Could a tribunal which relies for its sup- 
port upon moral force and public ojjinion alone, 
awes not by lictor and fasces, enforces its de- 
crees by no armed satellites, dispenses no pat- 
ronage and is sustained by no e.vecutive po'ver, 
long withstand the malignant influence, which 
would thus be brought to bear upon it ? 

And what would be the condition of things 
in the territories meanuhile ? The issue can- 
not be made and determined in California or 
New Mexico, removed to the Supreme Court, 
and there heard and adjudged, in less than three 
or four years. In that space of time, the terri- 
tories would be filled up with slave.'i and slave- 
holders, and they would probably be ready for 
admission into the Union, as states with consti-. 
tutions tolerating slavery, before the Supreme 
Court would be prepared to pronounce a decree, 
which if happily favorable to the cause of free- 
dom, would come, forever, too late. But it has 
been intimated by a gentleman from Alabama 
(Mr. Hilliard), that the present introduction of 
slavery into the territories is practically impo.s- 
sible, because there Is no law in being there to 
enforce the obedience of the slave. Sir, there is 
upon tiiis earth but one law, by which man, in 
spite of the law of nature and of Ciod, holds his 
fellov.'-man in bondage — the law o'\' farce, moral 
or physical. Does slavery in the southern states 
appeal for its support to the moral sense of the 
unlettered and degraded African ? Is it rever-i 
ence for the majesty of the law, considered as 
the expression of a nation's will, that binds the 
arm of the slave, in those communities where 
the same statute-book makes it a crime for the 
master to enlighten, by teaching, the immortal 
mind of the servant by the sweat of whose brow he 
lives.and punishes with de.\tii the slave who, in o. 
bedience to the first law of nature, raises hishand 
against a wiiite, in even the just defence of his 
person, his wife, or his child ? No, sir ; the an- 
thority of the master is sustained alone by the 
fear of brute violence, or the awe of superior in- 
telligej)ce, To these the giaveholder could ap. 



peal as successfully in California as in Carolina, 
and in case we are again cursed witli a nortii- 
ern executive with southern principles, ilio 
troops tliat Mr. Polk, witliout waiting for Con- 
gress to make appropriations for carrying tlio 
late treaty into eflect, and probably with an eye 
to this very contingency, is now sendin^f to the 
new territory, will be employed to put down any 
servile insurrection, or manifestation of popular 
displeasure, that may threaten the peace and se- 
curity of the emigrant slaveholder. But if there 
be no law for sustaining slavery in New Mexico 
and California while thequestion is pending'be- 
fore the judiciary, the Compromise Bill has ef- 
fectually secured the title of the master, by for- 
bidding the territorial legislature to pass any Ihw 
whatever on the subject of slavery. They can- 
not emancipate the siave.they can enact no stat- 
ute for his protection against the cruelty of his 
owner, tiiey can lend him no aid in establishing 
his right to freedom. Under these circumstan- 
ces, how could the slave employ or reward his 
counsel, how could he collect his witnesses, and 
what would be his protection against the resent- 
nient of his master, irritated by his impotent ef- 
forts to assert his rights to his birth-right.liberty'' 
It was found an easy matter to import slaves in- 
to Texas, in spiie of prohibitory law; will it be 
[nore diiTicult to introduce them into New Mexi- 
co in the absence of all law ? 

I spoke just nov/ of slavery as existing in de- 
fiance of the law of God. Let me not be mis- 
understood. I sit not in judgment to condemn 
my lellow christians, who were born and reared 
in comuiunities v.diere slavery existed for gener- 
ations before their own age, and is incorporated, 
as a supposed inseparable element, in all tlieir 
domestic traditions, their historical recollections, 
their civil institutions. I speak not of individu- 
al cases, but of slavery as a system deliberately 
adopted, continued without overruling necessity, 
or voluntarily extended. I agree that both the 
opinions and the feelings of southern men on this 
delicate question are entitled to great consider- 
ation. I respect their opinions, because their 
better opportunitions for observation give them 
a more intimate knowledge of the social, moral, 
and economical bearings of the system, tl.an a 
stranger can possibly acquire, and I can con- 
ceive that they may ije in some degree reconcil- 
ed to the undeniable evils of slavery by the por- 
. ception of compensations, inappreciable by Nor- 
thern men, by which a wise and beneficent 
Providence, (as in other cases of great and wide- 
ly diffused wrong), mitigates those to northern 
iipprehension so unmixed evils. I know more- 
over, that some Southern men, who deplore and 
acknowledge the wrong and the mischief in its 
full extent, see, or think they see, in every 
pchcmQ of abolition yet proposed, dangers to the 



best interests of both -races .^o certain and so an> 
palling, that they believe it betferand wiser witii 
a " ma.'-.torly inactivity " to look to the interposi' 
tion of I'rovidcnce alone for relief, tlian to appe;i 1 
to any human counsel, iiowever specious, i 
have, too, a great respect for the prejudices of' 
birth and education, and for the feelings founded 
on them, knowing, as long observation of tho 
world has taught me, that no man can wiiolly 
renounce those prejudices, however erroneous, 
or quite abjure his hereditary opinions upon re- 
ligion, or government, or social order, without 
at the same time sacrificing a large portion of 
the better part of his own nature. Nor can { 
forget, that this general subject, which with us 
of the North is a question of political power, or 
of abstract right, affecting in no degree our se- 
curity, and but remotely our social and pecunia- 
ry interests, is to the people of the Soutli a ques- 
tion of the most vital interest, involving in its 
various relations the permanence of long cher- 
ished institutions, the economical arrangements 
on which they depend for sustenance, and even 
the safety of their firesides. It is not Strang.?, 
that those who have so great a stake at hazard 
should be peculiarly sensitive upon this topic, 
and I am disposed to regard with charity 3 de- 
cree of passionate excitement in Southern gen- 
tlemen, when this subject is discussed, which I 
should deem censurable in Nortliern speakers. 

For the humane Southern slaveholcTer, there-, 
fore, so long as he confines his system and its 
influences to his patrimonial limits, I have no 
reproaches, though 1 can neither assent to his 
opinions, nor sympathize in his feelings; and it 
is only when he defends the abuses of slavery, 
or invokes the aid of our national government 
to extend over a wide space the evils under 
which he, perhajis unconsciously, labors, that [ 
am bound to regard him as an antagonist. I 
have consequently neither motive nor desire to 
discuss the moral or economical character of 
slavery, but I must be excused for pausing a 
moment to notice one argument in defence of 
slavery as a christian institution, which has 
been mucii oftener urged them answered. 

Forgetting that Christianity discourages all 
appeals to force, and is, emphatically, the reli- 
gion of moral suasion and non-resistance, tho 
advocates of Slavery triumphantly cite, as an 
explicit recognition and sanction of a servile re- 
lation analogous to modern Slavery, those pas- 
sages of the New Testament, which enjoin up- 
on the servant oliedienco to the commands of tho 
master. But this argument is founded in amis- 
apprehension of the fundamental principles ot 
christian ethics — upon the assumption, that in 
this, as in other schemes of morality, the impo^ 
sition of a didij or obliiru/ion upon one party con- 
fers a correlativo right upon tlie other, coupled 



jffith authority to enforce that right. Nothing 
can be farther from both the letter and the spirit 
of Christianity than such a proposition as this. — 
The great rule " as ye would that men would do 
to you, do ye also to them likewise" is a gener- 
alization of the entire code of christian morality, 
find properly conditioned and understood, is of 
universal application, but it by no means author- 
izes the indiscriminate use of compulsory n^eans 
to enforce obedience to its injunctions, and nu- 
merous particular cases are put where a duty is 
required to be performed to a party, who has not 
the shadow of a right to demand, still less, to 
po77ipel the discharge of the obligation. " There- 
fore, if thv enemy hunger, feed him ;" Does 
this passage authorise my enenrjy to demand of 
me bread,, and when I refuse it, to wrest it from 
me by force ? •' Him that taketh away thy coat, 
forbid not to take thy oloak also ;"' Does this in- 
junction warrant my neighbor in stripping me, 
that he may clothe hirnself ? "Whosoever shall 
smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the 
other also ;" Did any sane niar) ever argue, that 
the unprovoked smiter might here find a justifi- 
cation for repeating the blow? "Resist not 
evil ;" Is this command a license to do to others 
that evil, which we rnight nqt ourselves lawfully 
resist ? He that defends Slavery by the author- 
ity of the New Testament must be prepared to 
maintain the affirmative of these questions, and 
Jie would reason as well in this, as in affirmmg 
that, because Christianity enjoins upon the ser- 
vant suomission to the will of the master, it jus- 
tifies the niaster in extorting unwilling obe- 
dience and unrequited labor from the slave. 

But it has been said, that the South neither 
expects or desires the introduction of Slavery 
into the new territory, because its soil and cli- 
mate are unsuited to the growth of those veget- 
able products, for the culture of which alone, 
slave labor can be advantageously employed. — 
Oregon, California and New Mexico, it is urged, 
lie without the natural limits of Slavery, and 
the institution cannot ej^ist in those provinces, 
because it is excluded by physical conditions 
and the economical law of profit and loss vyhich 
they dictate. It is assumed, that none of the 
gub-tropical plants usually cultivated by slave 
labor, rice, cotton, or the sugar-cane, will thrive 
in the new territories, which are adapted only 
to grain-growing, and pastoral husbandry, 
and will therefore be inhabited and tjlledonly by 
freemen. But the whole of this supposition is 
a fallacy. It is not true, that profitable Slavery 
is confined to any particular range of climate, or 
any particular species of agricultural industry. 
Did the law of profit and loss, as regulated by 
physical circumstances, forbid the existence of 
Plavery in the similar climates of Greece and 
Hi^me, in Anglo-Saxou Britain, or ia ancient 



Teutonic and Scandinavian Europe? Does it 
forbid it, at this moment, in Mohammedan Tuti' 
key, from whose mild code of servile law the 
christian South might borrow useful lessons; ia 
frozen Russia ; in our own Maryland and Vir- 
ginia and Kentucky ? Sir, Slavery is every- 
where profitable under the nianagement of a 
prudent master, and especially so, in all new 
countries to which eijiigration is tending, and 
where the amount of labor to be done is greater 
than the force at hand to perform it. Doubtless 
it is true, that most mer\ who inherit property in 
slaves diminish, rather than augment, their pat- 
rirnonial estates. But this is just as true in re- 
lation to capital invested in any other way. — 
Capital employed in any industrial enterprise, in 
niining, in manufacturing, in agriculture, in 
navigation, in commerce, in a majority of cases 
fails to yield any increase. J3ut does this provCj 
that these branches of industry are in themselves 
unprofitable? By no means. It only proves 
that most men are unthrifty managers, and 
it will not be found that, in general, capital in? 
vested in slaves, even in the Northern slave 
States, is more unprofitable than when employ- 
ed in any other species of labor. It has been 
charged upon New England, and the other 
Northern States, as a reproach, that they abol? 
ished Slavery wjthin their limits, only when 
they discovered it to be no longer a lucrative 
mode of investing capital. Tliis is a historical 
error. Slavery was profitable in New England 
to the last, if pecuniary gain is profit, and it was 
abolished, not because it was contrary to the eco- 
nomical law of profit and loss, but because our 
fathers held it, as did then also the wisest and 
best of their Southern brethren, to be contrary 
to the law of conscience and of God. 

I shall not charge upon any gentleman a de- 
sign to deceive the ilouse or the country by 
these representations, but if the disclaimer of a 
purpose to extend Slavery beyond its present 
limits is sincere, I still question whether gen- 
tlemen have the authority of their cunstituent:^ 
for makincr it. I cannot doubt that it is the int 
tention of a powerful party at the South to car- 
ry Slavery to latitude forty-nine, or just so far 
as it shall" not be prohibited by some law of Con? 
gress, and I cannot look upon the late Compro- 
mise Bill as anything but an ingeniously devist 
ed scheme for accomplishing that object, under 
cover of an apparent respect for law. I have 
been told that some Northern gentlemen have 
been ill-advised enough to plume themselves up. 
on some of the niost objectionable features of 
that bill, as original inventions of their own — . 
This is doubtless an honest, pevhaps a pardona- 
ble vanity, but under some circumstances, we 
are unable to trace the operations of our own 
minds, and therefore it is var^ possib)a, tjt^t, 



what was apparently a Northern suggestion mav 
have been in fact prompted by a Southern inspi- 
ration. , , , . , , 

But if, in truth, the South holds it to be unde- 
sirable or impracticable to introduce slavery in- 
to Oregon, or the whole of New Mexico and 
Califor'nia, why offend and irritate the North, by 
insisting on a barren, disputed right, which it 
is never intended to exercise ? I am answered, 
that pride forbids Southern men to yield in a 
controversy provoked by ns of the North, and 
to capitulate in an issue, which we have forced 
upon them. But is not this agitation a neces- 
sary, foreseen and foretold result of the annexa- 
tion of Texas, and did we force that flagitious 
measure upon you ? Did we contrive that can- 
ning and profligate artifice by which, while 
Texas was yet a Mexican State, and in spite of 
its own organic law, slavery was there extended 
and perpetuated ? Did we plot the intrigues, 
■whereby the revolt of Texas was first excited, 
and tlien nursed and encouraged until it ripened 
into a revolution ? Did we furnish the men, 
the money and the [materiel, by which alone 
Texas was enabled to resist the arms of Mexi- 
co ? Did a Northern Administration dispense 
the patronage, and participate in the corruption, 
by which annexation, in defiance of the solemn 
resolutions of almost every Northern State Le- 
gislature, and the almost unanimous opinion of 
the Northern people, was introduced into the 
Democratic platform by the Baltimore cabal, 
and afterwards, in palpable violation of the Con- 
stitution, carried through both Houses of Con- 
gress ? Was it to gratify the ambition of a 
Northern Executive, or to extend the bounds of 
Northern institutions, that an unprovoked war 
has been waged with Mexico, two hundred mil- 
lions of dollars' worse than squandered, thou- 
sands of Mexican citizens butchered for defend- 
ing their altars and their homes, and myriads of 
our citizens sacrificed to the accursed idol — 
military glory ? 

But, Mr. Chairman, let me be just. Let me 
not involve in sweeping and indiscriminate con- 
demnation the whole people of the South, as 
participants in crimes, whose original guilt 
properly rests on the shoulders of a few South- 
ern political aspirants, but the shame of whose 
consummation is the damning and irretrievable 
disgrace of the Democracy of the North. A 
majority of the Baltimore Convention of 1844, 
which pledged the party to the annexation of 
Texas, and rejected Mr. Van Buren, because, 
in emerging from the cloud in which his politi- 
cal opinions are usually shrouded, he had, mis- 
taking the signs of the times, accidentally come 
out on the Northern side of this question, was 
composed of Northern Democrats ; the issue 
was /airly made in the Presidential election of 



that year, and (with the exception of enlight* 
ened Pennsylvania, which sustained Mr. Polk 
as a tariff-man.) the Vote of every Northern 
Democratic State was givert to the nominee of 
the Baltimore Convention, expressly as the 
apostle of annexation ; and upon the final vote 
in Congress, every Northern Democratic Sena.' 
tor, and every Northern Democratic Represen- 
tative save three, recorded his suffrage in favor 
of this great wrong. 

On the other hand, it should never be forgot- 
ten, that the Southern Whigs as a body, and 
with very few exceptions, in resisting, in spite 
of sectional prejudice, and the denunciations of 
a majority of their immediate fellow citizens, a 
policy which, though speciously recommended 
by considerations of local advantage, they held 
to be a violation of national right, and a sacri- 
fice of national interest, exhibited, to their ever- 
lasting honor, a generosity, an incorruptible 
firmness, and a degree of political virtue, of 
which the North, unhappily, has given but iQ\y 
examples.* 



* The most important votes in Congress on the 
question of'aane.tation were as follows: 

On the 15th of March, 1844, Mr. Winthrop moved 
the following resolution in the House of Representa- 
tives: — 

Ilesolved, That no proposition for the annexation 
of Texas to the United States ought to be made, or 
assented to, by this government. 

Upon the question of suspending the rules for the 
purpose of receiving the resolution, 

Every Northern, and three Southern Whig mem- 
bers, v/nhthree Democrats only (Messrs. R. D. Davis, 
Potter and J. A. Upright) voted in the affirmative. 

Every democrat (except as above) including Messrs 
Brinkerhoff, Preston King, Rathbun and other promi- 
nent Barnburners, with_/f/iee« Southern whige, voted 
in the negative. 

On the llth of June, 1844, after the rejection of Mr. 
Tyler's Annexation Treaty by the Senate, the Presi- 
dent sent a mes age to the House of Representatives, 
urging that body to take immediate steps towards ef- 
fecting the object which he had failed to accomplisli 
by treaty. 

With a view of preventing any action on the sub- 
ject, Mr. John P. Kennedy, a Southern whig, moved 
to lay the communication on the table. 

Upon this motion, every whig member, with the 
exception of six Southern gentlemen, voted in the 
affirmative ; every democratic member, Northern as 
well as Southern, including Messrs. Brinkerhott', R. 
D. Davis, Hamlin, Preston King, Norris and Rath- 
bun, voted in tlie negative. 

On the final passage of the bill, as amended by the 
Senate, Feb. 28, 1845, the vote in the House ol Repre- 
sentatives was as follows : — 

In the affirmative, eiicri/ democratic member, north- 
ern as well as southern, exceptiiig Messrs. R. D. Da- 
vis, John P Hale and E. 11. Potter, but including 
Messrs. Brinkerhof!', Dillingham, Hannibal Hamlin, 
Preston King, Rathbun, &c. 

In the negative, every whig memler, Southern as 
well as Northern, with the single exception of Mr. 
Dellett of Alabama. 

It will thus be seen, that though a few Southern 



10 



But does not this question involve some con- 
siderations of fairness and dutv to the North ? — 
Has it not been the uniform policv of this gov- 
ernment to strenjTthen the shiveliolding, at the 
cost of tiie free States? Have we not vielded 
every doubtful question of title upon the North- 
ern frontier, and insisted on every semblance of 
claim upon the iSouthern border ? Is it not no- 
torious, that the war of 1812. though declared 
by us, was waged solely as a defensive war, les't 
aggressive operations should result in strength- 
ening the free States by the conquest of Cana- 
da ? Would the treaty of Washington, so wise- 
ly negotiated by Webster, have been sanctioned 
by a Southern President, if it had been a South- 
ern, instead of a free State, whose claims were 
compromised ? Why was our claim to North- 
ern Oregon so readily relinquished? Was it 
because Mr. Polk thought our title up to 54o 40, 
which he surrendered without an equivalent, less 
clear than the right of Texas to the valley of t!ie 
Rio Grande, to sustain whicli, he engaged in a 
war, in defiance of all the forms of the Constitu- 
tion ? Was it because he believed Vancouver's 
Island, the noble harbors, and all the fertile ter- 
ritory North of 49 degrees, less valuable than the 
" stupendous deserts" between the Nueces and 
the Rio Bravo ? Was it because he held a war 
with powerful England unlawful, but with puny 
Mexico, praiseworthy ! No sir ; it was because 
lie and his advisers sought to clip the wings of 
the North, and plinnethe pinions of the South. 
And yet this was patiently borne. 

Tlie constitution was shamelessly trampled 
under foot, and the blackest and most gigantic 
scheme of political corruption, that over disgrac- 
ed a free people, was organized to sustain South- 
ern ascendency by the annexation of Texas. — 
And this has been patiently borne. An unjust 
and disgraceful war has been waged with a sis- 
ter republic, a national debt incu°red, that will 
liang like a millstone upon the necks of our 
children for half a century, and thousands of 
lives sacrihced by pestilence and the sword, to 
gratify the ambition of Southern prize-fighters 
und politicians. This, too, has been patiently 
borne; and after all this, I ask, is it fair to insist 
that the paltry 'indemnity' which we have re- 
ceived for all this loss of treasure and blood and 
lienor shall enure to the exclusive benefit of the 
South ? So far as Slavery already exists be- 
neath the regis of your State constitutions, we 
seek not to interfere with it. We leave its aho- 



Whi^s at first favored annexation, they were at last 
all butuuanimously opposed to the measure. 

In the Senate, 'Feb. 26, 1815, on the finul'passage 
of tlie bill, every Democratic Senator voted in the 
.ifnrniative ; every Whig Senator, exceptino; ?>Iessrs. 
•lohnson and Merrick, but ineludmg twelve other 
Southern iVhigs, in the negative. 



lition, or its maintenance, to your own con- 
sciences and the suggestions of your enlighten- 
ed self-interest; but we must not, and wiU not, 
be asked to aid yon in extending it; in forcing 
upon free soil a curse, which you have often 
complained, that the cupidity of the mother coun- 
try, in your age of colonial dependence, forced 
upon you. 

Upon this point, the North is no longer to be 
reasoned with. It has, to use a parlia'nientary 
phrase, moved and sustained the previous ques- 
tion, and its will can be defeated only by the 
same means of congressional corruption, by 
which the annexation of Texas was effected.—! 
The people of the North cannot again be hood- 
winked or cajoled, and, as I believe and trust, 
they are prepared to do what thev ourrlit to 
have done when that greatoutrage was perpetra- 
ted — to resist^ namely, to every extremity, and 
by all the lawful means, tiiat God and nature 
have put into their hands. 

There is a class of Northern politicians who 
seek every opportunity of parading their obse- 
quious subserviency to the will of the South, and 
their contempf for the sectional interests of their 
own people; who prefer Presidential candidates 
pledged to ultra Southern interests and policy, 
and who, had the choice of the late Baltimore 
Convention fallen upon Shatter and Williams, 
would liave hailed the nomination with as un- 
hesitating devotion as they have that of Cass 
and Butler. Such men abound in every demo- 
cratic State ; in frozen New England, in the 
fertile West, throughout the middle States ; and 
whenever the occasions of Southern gentlemen 
gentlemen demand a curb for Northern freedom 
of action and speech, in the shape of a gag-rule, 
or a motion for the previous que.stion, or to lay 
upon the table, at an ungracious moment, they 
have only to signify their pleasure to some son 
of New Hampshire, who has studied political 
ethics under Hubbard and Hill, or some Penn- 
sylvania broadhorn, who believes in Polk and 
the tariff of '42. 

If then, by any chance, there are democrats of 
this stamp in the present House of Representa- 
tives, it is probable enough, that, by the use of 
familiar appliances, Congress may yet be induc- 
ed to adopt the Compromise Bill or some other 
equally insidious and mischievous scheme; but 
its passage will produce a tornado of popular in- 
dignation, to which all former tempests will be 
but zephyrs. The entire Northern people will 
demand repeal, and not a representative will l)e 
returned to the next Congress from the free 
States, wlio is not pledged to that measure. — 
There are abundant and unmistakable tokens of 
a fixed determination throughout the North to 
consent to no arrangement, by which one foot 
of American soil now legally or actually free" 



11 



shall be contaminated by the spread of Slavery, 
und tlie movement which has now commenced 
will go on, gathering strength, until it shall have 
accomplished its object— the legal restriction of 
Slavery, namely, to its present limits — or have 
rent this Union into fragments. V/hcn I speak 
of unequivocal tokens, I do not refer to certain 
hue remarkable movements among the democrat- 
ic party-leaders in New York and elsewhere. 
These are important, not as expreysions, bwt as 
imlicalions, of popular opinion. The instigators 
of these proceedings are very f;ir from being the 
originators of the feeling, which now controls 
the^masscs of the North, except in so far as their 
own former outrageous treachery to Northern 
rights and interests has contributed to provoke 
it! They are dexterously seizing and convert- 
ing to their own corrupt and sellish purposes an 
honorable, enthusiasm, which they derided as a 
sickly sensibility or a narrow prejudice, con^ 
demned as an unjust and uncharitable hostility 
to the institutions and prosperity of the South. 
and denounced as a virtual infraction of the 
compromises of the constitution, until, in its 
growing strength, it threatened to overwhelm 
them, and now they are fanning it with an assi- 
duity that quite puts to the blush the llagging 
zeal of the new recruit from the Granite State, 
and the ancient champion from the Western 
Reserve. 

Tiie leaders of the barnburner faction, when 
in Congress, have uniformly resisted tiiat right 
so dear to freemen, the right of petition''=; they 
advocated the annexation of Texasf; they sus- 
tained and justified the Mexican war, with a 
tuU knowledge of the base purposes for which it 
was provoked; and now they offer to atone for 
all these wrongs, by opposing the further exten- 
sion of slavery, whose area they have done so 
much to enlarge, and by complimenting with 
the hollow mockery of a fruitless nomination that 
cast-ofFidol, the IJagon of their ancient worship, 
upon whom the South, in the convention of 18-14, 
bestowed a tit reward for a life of slavish devo- 
tion to its interests, by turning him into the wil- 
derness as a scapegoat laden with a burden 
heavy enough to crush an Atlas — the sins of the 
democracy. Such are the men, who are now 
insulting the understandings of Northern free- 
men, by courting their sufiVages for a presiden- 



* At the first session of the 28th Congress a strenu- 
ous effort was made to rescind the notorious 21st rule, 
■which forbade the reception of petitions concerning 
the abolition of Slavery. On the 27tlx and 23th of 
February 1844, numerous votes were taken on the 
question, and Messrs Jacob Brinkerhoff, Preston Kins;, 
Norris, and other /rce soil democrats, are recorded as 
having voted to sustain that infaiuous rule, eight times 
in those two days. 

t See previous note, p 9. 



tial candidate, who, when Vice President, gave 
the casting vote in the Senate in favor of a bill 
forbidding "postmasters to deliver to any pcrsou 
whatever" papers touching the subject of Slave- 
ry, in the slave states, ]; wlio bought the support 
of the South by pledging hiinselt in advance to 
veto any '• attempt on the part of Congress to 
abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia",) 
and wh.o sent a public armed vessel to a port in 
Connecticut, to kidnap the negroes of the Amis- 
tad. 

And with all this, they have not the virtue and 
the manhood to avow and regret their former 
errors. They profess reformation without repen- 
tance, glory in their shame, and witii hands stii[ 
unwashed of the uncleanness of Texan annexa- 
tion, and red with the blood of an unholy war, 
they proclaim themselves the chosen apostle.^ of 
human liberty. Out upon the bald hypocrisy of 
these whited sepulchres ! The sacred cause of 
freedom needs no sucli allies as these. 

But let us return to the main question I am 
discussing. Besides the obvious moral and po- 
litical considerations, which forbid the introduc- 
tion of Slavery into the new territory, there is 
another, that has great weight with the people of 
the North. It is, that in their opinion, any com- 
promise, by which Slavery shall be tolerated at 
all in Now Mexico and California, involves a 
repetition of the Te.xas iniquity. A new rebel- 
lion will be fomented, a new revolution proclaim- 
ed, a nev/ scheme of annexation plotted, and an- 
other war of conquest and plunder waged. — 
Those events are already foreshadowed in the 
reported movements towards establishing the 
Republic of the Sierra T'/Iadre, and they can be 
prevented only by prohibiting the extension of 
Slavery, which has been the motive and the in- 
ducement forall the national crimes perpetrated 
or plotted on our Southern and Southwestern 
frontier. 

Under these circumstances, what is the duty 
of Congress ? To shrink from the responsibili- 
ty of determining this great question, and de- 
volve it upon a tribunal, whose province it is to 
declare not what the law shall, and ought to be, 
but what it is ? The power of Congress to leg- 
islate on this subject is unquestionable, and the 
duty is as clear as the right. A vast majority 
of the people demand the exercise of this power, 
and the popular will must and will be obeyed. 
No bill for the organization of government in the 
new territories can ever pass this House, with- 
out some posia'ie provision on this subject, and 
no such mixed question of law and fact, as that 
of the present and future legal existence of 
Slavery in Mexico, will ever be submitted to the 

t Congressional Globe /.3 vol. p. 416. 
^ President Van Buren's inaugural address March 
I 4th, 1837, 



12 



arbitrament' of our national judiciary. 

Sir, I liope the day is not far distant when the 
people of these provinces will need bo legisla- 
tion of ours. With the British possessions on 
the North West Qoast, they will soon be strong 
enough to found' and maintain a Republic of 
their own, and were they to declare their inde- 
pendence of this government tomorrow, I for 
one should be ready to vote for its recognition. 
But while they are preparing for this desirable 
event, let us give them the blessings of a free 
government, promote emigration to their shores, 
cherish and defend them, and when they no lon- 
ger require the fostering care of the mother 
country, let us bid them God speed, and dismiss 
them. Why should not the unnatural connec- 
tion between us and these remote regions be 
severed ? What common interests has Boston 
with the Bay of San Francisco, or New York 
with Monterey, or Charleston and Savannah and 
New Orleans with Puget^s sound and the mouth 



1 of the Columbia ? True, their people have th( 
same su» and light and air and common human- 
ity and religion and God, but their social anc 
pecuniary relations are as diverse from each 
other as are the interests of the camel drivers o 
the desert from those of the ermine-hunters o: 
Siberia. Oregon and California lie so far to- 
wards the setting snn, that they lose themselves 
in the East. Separated from us by an eternal 
and impassable barrier ot waste and mountain, 
they are united to the coast of Asia by the free- 
ly navigable basin of the Pacific, as are our east- 
ern shores to the European Continent by the At 
lantic sea. From the ties of common blood and 
speech and faith, their population will sympa- 
thize with American and European civilization 
and Christianity, but they belong to another ge- 
ographical and political system, and their natur- 
al relations and interests bind them indissolubly 
to the oriental world. What, then, God hath 
joined together, let not nun put asuoider ! 






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